Yamaha's new Pocket Club drums look and sound amazing. Rich tones, stunnign finishes and......ok. The focus of this event for me was nothing to do with the drums. Ash Soan and Neal Wilkinson are two of the busiest session drummers in the country, and incredibly underrated in my opinion.
These guys came out together, played drums together, took untold amounts of questions and kept the same message throughout......simplicity is NOT stupidity.
It was hugely refreshing to go to a clinic and come away knowing that you could have also played every single note. Not only that but they were portraying a great message to young drummers (the right message in my opinion).
For drummers like myself, who are slightly "challenged" when it comes to the faster chops, it gave added hope that you can have amazing careers playing simple grooves with feel. And feel they did. You could physicallyn see the grooves they were creating through their movement as they played.
All in all an incredible night. Please check out some of the promo footage here.
Hear Hear! I went along to the tour in Glasgow and saw them play. What a great night. I continually nodded my head in agreement with everything they were saying. I was beginning to think I was alone in my daily mantra of 'keeping it simple', especially when teaching teenagers who think it's cool to play as many rudiments as possible over a song at excess speeds. Eh no. You earn more respect as a drummer if you play the song with groove and keeping out the way and playing musically. This concept of feel isn't discussed enough in the ever so macho drumming magazines. It's time the young people were educated. Well done to Ash and Neal for getting the message across. Thank you!
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Glad you enjoyed the clinic, i hope more like that begin touring - Ralph Salmins and Karl Brazil also toured at the same time and were similarly on point with the message.
ReplyDeleteSteve Jordan - the groove is here is a must have for enforcing this also!
Thanks for the comment.
Dusty
Yeah I've heard about that book. Going to investigate that. I'm glad I've discovered these like minded people because the rudihead types were making me feel inferior with their drumming acrobatics as I put it. Good luck to them getting a gig I say. I'll stick to the grooving. I'd rather be inside a song, laying down the foundations than clattering round about it attention seeking. :)
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